Life — January 7, 1909 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a Life magazine cover featuring an illustrated cherub or cupid character with wings, wearing a pilot's cap and goggles, operating a bicycle pump on an automobile tire. The cherub appears small and struggling with the task. The title reads "Busy Wagon Number," credited to artist James Montgomery Flagg. **The joke**: This appears to be a visual pun playing on automobiles as a novelty. The winged cherub (representing "life" or love) is humorously depicted doing automotive maintenance—specifically inflating a tire—suggesting either the absurdity of early car ownership's demands or satirizing the growing automotive industry. The "busy" reference likely comments on the frantic activity surrounding the new automobile craze in early 1900s America.